More incredible stories are sure to emerge in the wake of these horrific events. In what's surfaced so far, witnesses recount sounds they thought were fireworks, bodies lying at their doorsteps, screams, and how they managed to survive. The most unifying thread in their stories? Disbelief. Disbelief that what sounded like an explosion was actually an explosion. Disbelief that what sounded like gunshots were actually gunshots. Disbelief that this could happen at all in a thriving metropolis on what should have been just a normal Friday night.

Here are some of their stories.

"I think it was 20 minutes after the beginning of the match, we heard the first explosion."

I am safe now. Coralie (my girlfriend) is here but she is in shock. I think it was 20 minutes after the beginning of the match, we heard the first explosion. But we are used to hearing fireworks or loud noises in stadiums so we just assumed it was that.

"It's a war zone at my doorstep."

I was going out to run an errand late Friday night and then I saw the horror, bodies without life on the curb, and people who were throwing sheets down from their windows so that we could cover the bodies … It's a war zone at my doorstep. I was able to get back inside, and I barricaded myself.

"Blood everywhere."

Jérome Boucer was at the Eagles of Death Metal show at the Bataclan. He told The Guardian:

The concert had started. I was in the audience and I heard what sounded like a firecracker. It was loud but the gig was very loud and I thought it was something that was part of the show. I think lots of people did too. Then they started firing. I saw what I thought was at least two people, then I fled. The exits were clearly marked and I just ran. There were wounded, there was a lot of blood. Blood everywhere.

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"All of a sudden, we heard a first explosion, then a second, one minute later I think."

All of a sudden, we heard a first explosion, then a second, one minute later I think. We felt the wall and the ground shake in the room we were gathered in. After about 5 to 10 minutes, we heard police sirens. I tried to get on Twitter to get news, but the internet wasn't working. I finally was able to get some info from iTele, and that's when I discovered that there had also been attacks in Paris. We began to realize this was really serious.

"There were screams, and they locked the doors."

Eyewitness Erin Allweiss spoke to NPR last night, while she was still stuck inside a restaurant just three doors down from one of the attack sites:

We were sitting at dinner and all of a sudden there was commotion ... there were screams, and they locked the doors. And we thought that they were going to push through the doors and we heard gunshots that were clearly gunshots, and everyone went under the table, hiding.

And afterwards it was quiet, and one of the photographers we were with ... he went and he took some photographs, and we saw there were four to 10 people who were killed at the restaurant three doors down. ...

It wasn't clear that this was part of a group of attacks. And so all of us turned to our phones very quickly, and we saw that there had been an attack on a stadium, and began to wonder if this was a bigger incident and not just isolated.

"The attackers had enough time to reload at least three times."

Several armed men came into the concert. Two or three men, not wearing masks, came in with what looked like Kalashnikovs and fired blindly on the crowd.

It lasted between 10 and 15 minutes. It was extremely violent and there was panic. The attackers had enough time to reload at least three times. They were very young. There were bodies everywhere.

"We could hear explosions, gunshots, screams but we didn't know what was going on really."

Another man who survived the attack at the Bataclan theatre told The Telegraph:

The concert had started about half and hour before. We heard firecracker noises and we turned around and saw two young people. Two young people, well, we were a bit far away so two people with machine guns firing into the crowd. So we all laid [sic] on the ground. There were panic, screams. Shoots [sic] continued to be fired. At the right of the stage, a door was opened and we all rushed there. We got stuck there, it was leading to a staircase, we got stuck in the staircase for five to ten minutes. People were trying to force some doors opened, up there but the doors were only leading to dressing rooms, green rooms so it didn't lead to anything. Someone managed to open the door leading to the rooftop so we all got up on the rooftop. We waited for a while. And there was a man whose apartment has a window that opens onto the rooftop. He opened the window and let us in his apartment. We stayed the whole time at his place, in the dark, waiting for events to unfold. We could hear explosions, gunshots, screams but we didn't know what was going on really.

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"This is the cell phone that took the hit, it's what saved me."

One man, known only as Sylvestre, told iTele that his Samsung mobile phone saved his life during the attack outside Stade de France when a bullet hit it instead of him.

This is the cell phone that took the hit, it's what saved me. Otherwise my head would have been blown to bits. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

"There was blood everywhere, corpses everywhere."

French radio presenter, Pierre Janazak, was sitting on a balcony at the Bataclan when they first heard shots. He and his friends hid in a bathroom for two hours. He told AFP:

At first we thought it was part of the show but we quickly understood … they didn't stop firing. There was blood everywhere, corpses everywhere. We heard screaming. Everyone was trying to flee.They had 20 hostages, and we could hear them talking with them … I clearly heard them say "It's the fault of Hollande, it's the fault of your president, he should not have intervened in Syria." They also spoke about Iraq.

"We heard, in three minutes, two big explosions."

Laurent Lachand told CTV News that she didn't know it was an attack at the stadium at first:

We heard, in three minutes, two big explosions, but we understood isn't not in the stadium. At the moment … we don't have the impression that it's an attack. We think it's a problem with the fans. It was just after that when we say … Francois Hollande was leaving the stadium and go to the protected area inside the stadium.

"When we came out it looked like a slaughterhouse."

We ... went upstairs on the right of the stage and hid for two hours in a room, all 25 of us, listening to the sound of Kalashnikovs and explosions. People were screaming as if they were being tortured.When we came out it looked like a slaughterhouse.

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